The ethnic cleansing of Palestine, from the viewpoint of a concerned Australian.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Bil'in anniversary

This week marks the fourth anniversary of the farming village of Bil'in's resistance to the ongoing theft of its lands. Lying to the west of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, Bil'in and the neighbouring villages have seen their agricultural lands substantially whittled away for settlements and Israelis-only access roads.

Each week scores of villagers, accompanied by international human rights workers and Israeli supporters, attempt to march from the village mosque to the site of the latest land theft. Each week they are confronted by heavily-armed Israeli storm troopers who retaliate against the peaceful protests with tear gas, stun grenades, rubber-coated steel bullets and live ammunition.

Each week, in the village and in the olive groves, protesters are wounded, arrested, sometimes crippled and, occasionally, killed. Yet each week they come out again. It is this spirit which the Zionist state, for all its lack of moral scruples and much-vaunted military might, cannot break.